Socrates and Ripped Jeans

I just finished reading this book, Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire, by Andrew Wilkinson. Andrew is a first-generation entrepreneur, a self-made billionaire. ¹

After I completed the book, I decided to read up a bit more about the author. (In fact, I always google the author if I like any book to see if there are other works by them I might find of interest.) And I came across the following post by him:

I explored how my complex family dynamics fueled my desire for wealth and success and how, once achieved, money’s corrosive effects manifested in myself and those around me. Ultimately, I confronted the question I was grappling with, almost two decades into my career, having achieved what I always thought I wanted:

What are you supposed to do once you’ve “made it”?

Because for me, there was no ‘there’ there. I felt just as anxious and stressed out with ten million dollars in the bank as I did with ten thousand. And despite having more money than I needed, I was maniacally still going. But why? 

What I found particularly alarming was that as I met more and more successful people—first deca-millionaires, then centi-millionaires, then billionaires and multi-billionaires—I realized they were no different from me.

Most were still going, still striving for more. Dissatisfied and looking up at the next, richer person. The next rung on the ladder. A bigger plane. Another mansion. A super-yacht.

No matter what they had, it was never enough.

This terrified me because all my life, I’d always thought money would solve my problems. That it would stop my parents from fighting. Bring my family closer together. Make my life more exciting. And attract incredible friends. Most importantly, I believed it would finally take away the pit in my stomach. 

That miserable, anxious lump that I thought would go away if I just had enough zeros at the end of my bank statement.

But that isn’t what happened…

I guess anyone who has ever achieved anything significant has always felt it, that void, that lack of purpose, or the meaninglessness of it all. 

Besides, it is an extremely important question too: when is enough, enough?

When I sat down to write this post, my first thought was of the famous anecdote from the life of Diogenes, the 4th-century BCE Greek philosopher who led a frugal life. He lived in a barrel, owned almost nothing, and once told Alexander the Great to “stand out of my sunlight.” Diogenes rejected wealth, fame, and societal expectations. If he were alive today, he’d be the guy at your startup meeting who shows up barefoot, drinks tap water, and asks, “But why do we even need a business model?”

Mind you, Diogenes wasn’t just being edgy for the sake of it. He had a point: freedom isn’t getting more; it’s needing less.

I am not suggesting that you too start living in the pipes of some municipal corporation. For there’s certainly a middle path between living in a barrel and staring down the barrel. And that’s where the wisdom of Bhagavad Gita is simply exceptional. While Buddha says, just hit “unsubscribe” from all worldly pleasures, and that life is nothing but suffering, suffering, and more suffering. Krishna takes a more nuanced approach. 

“It’s alright if you desire,” Krishna says, “but you must understand the nature and consequences of various forms of desires. There is always a price to pay. You are here for a short period, so live fully, rejoice, love, be kind, be charitable, and be ambitious. But treat desire with caution.”

So getting back to the fundamental question: how much is enough? You may be tempted to come up with a figure, but remember, chances are that once you had a much lower figure in mind. You might have thought if you hit that number, you would do this, that, and the other. But when you did hit that number, you were already aiming for something completely different. 

In other words, enoughness isn’t a destination. It’s a practice. A mindset. We might just swap enoughness for contentment, if you see what I mean. 

As I was writing this post, a thought crossed my mind: what if Socrates came back to earth today? In this mad, ultra-connected world where everyone seems to be in a rush, how would he find his bearings? Almost 2500 years ago, when he strolled around the marketplace and said, “How many things there are which I do not need.” Today, he’d probably walk through a mall muttering, “Why are all the jeans already ripped?”

He may not get the way of the world today, but the fact of the matter is we have ripped our jeans. Increasingly, as a society, we have placed vanity, fame, and show-off above peace, contentment, and wellbeing. We may have forgotten that when unbridled desires run amok, the garden of consciousness is trampled beyond repair. 

Hence, it pays to treat your desires with caution. Enough feels adequately enough then. After all, if “enough” was not meant to mean “enough,” we should not have coined this word at all. 

On that note, I feel I’ve said enough for the day. See you live on 3rd April at 7:30 PM IST at the launch of Tantra Sadhana. 

Peace.
Swami